Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation

This is the first book-length treatment of the concepts, designs, methods, and tools needed to conduct effective advocacy and policy change evaluations. By integrating insights from different disciplines, Part I provides a conceptual foundation for navigating advocacy tactics within today's turbulent policy landscape. Part II offers recommendations for developing appropriate evaluation designs and working with unique advocacy and policy change–oriented instruments. Part III turns toward opportunities and challenges in this growing field. In addition to describing actual designs and measures, the chapters includes suggestions for addressing the specific challenges of working in a policy setting, such as a long time horizon for achieving meaningful change.

To illuminate and advance this area of evaluation practice, the authors draw on over 30 years of evaluation experience; collective wisdom based on a new, large-scale survey of evaluators in the field; and in-depth case studies on diverse issues—from the environment, to public health, to human rights. Ideal for evaluators, change makers, and funders, this book is the definitive guide to advocacy and policy change evaluation.

Annette L. Gardner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Claire D. Brindis is Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy and Director of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.

"In the context of an accountability culture and as early developers and practitioners of APC evaluation, Gardner and Brindis established firm grounding and legitimacy for APC evaluation with this book. It continues to be a touchstone as practitioners in this dynamic field consider what APC evaluation was, is now, and should become."—Fontane Lo, American Journal of Evaluation --- "The time is ripe for Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation: Theory and Practice. As more funders embrace their role in promoting policy change, this area of the evaluation field is becoming increasingly important. This book does an excellent job of bringing together the 'state of the art.'"—Teresa Behrens, Director, Institute for Foundation and Donor Learning, Grand Valley State University and Editor-in-Chief, The Foundation Review --- "Advocacy and policy change evaluation has developed methods, conceptual frameworks, tools, and innovative approaches to the challenges of complex systems change. In this book, the field finds its first comprehensive, accessible synthesis—including case exemplars. Advocacy and Policy Change Evaluation definitively announces to the world that this is a specialization contributing credible and useful evaluations, documenting its accomplishments for all to see."—Michael Quinn Patton, author of Utilization-Focused Evaluation, 4th Edition --- "This book exemplifies a new way of characterizing an expanding evaluation field via a wonderfully illuminating integration of theory and practice. It will be an indispensable resource for evaluators examining advocacy: its public-interest goals, its expanded environment, its action strategies and their tensions, along with its answered and unanswered questions."—Eleanor Chelimsky, U.S. Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation (Retired) --- "This first foundational book on advocacy and policy change evaluation is a must-have resource. The authors have accumulated in one place the wealth of ideas, tools, and approaches that have been developed and tested in the field to date. Have evaluation design and implementation questions? You'll find answers here."—Julia Coffman, Director, Center for Evaluation Innovation